The seating is built around the kitchen, so you watch everything the chefs and waiters do. Part of what they do is explain what you're about to eat, which is extremely helpful.

Atera's owner Jodi Richard and GM Eamon Rockey found Atera's chef, Matthew Lightner, in Portland, Oregon, after flying all around the country eating people's food. Matt had been named one of the best new chefs in America in 2010. Some of the conservative folks in Portland, however, were apparently a bit freaked out by his food.

Some Portland folks were freaked out because Lightner makes what is described as "modern" food. The food is influenced by at least two recent culinary trends: "Foraging," which involves the use of strange, wild ingredients, and "molecular gastronomy," which applies scientific engineering to food. Lightner grows all his own herbs hydroponically, in a basement room at Atera. Here's a fresh batch in the "test kitchen."

(When you do the kind of stuff to food that Lightner does to food, you need a test kitchen. You also need a humongous pantry, like this.)

And that pantry, as you might imagine, is stuffed full of, well, unusual ingredients.

Upstairs, in the dining room, one of the walls is made of plants. It smells nice--like an herb garden. By the way, when Jodi Richard was buying the hydroponic equipment to grow the herbs, the hydroponics dealer was convinced she was building an industrial-scale pot farm. "Cash only," they said.

It's 9pm now, and Atera's full. Everyone's watching Matt and his team work their magic in the kitchen. And the food is starting to arrive...

Before the first course, though, Atera's sommelier popped over. His name is Alex LaPratt. He was recently named one of the best sommeliers in the country. In 97 days, he's going to take a test to become a "master" sommelier. There are only about 200 of them in the world.

Alex brought us a bottle of Riesling. For several reasons, I don't normally drink. Last night, I decided to drink. Then "snacks" started to arrive. Like granola dipped in a sesame sauce and frozen.

The food isn't the only stuff at Atera that is home made. All the plates and bowls are, too. And the boxes. And the table. And the light fixtures. And the lights.

The second group of snacks featured "fois gras peanuts," a chip of some sort, and pickled quail eggs. As we ate all these things, I began to consider the possibility that my contribution to Dwight and Jodi's local startup might not end up being as "minor" as I had expected.

Then came the first "ramps" of the season. Ramps, apparently, don't grow in captivity. Someone has to go find them.

And the final snack-- "lichen."

Careful not to break your teeth.

By 930pm, we were done with the snacks. We were also done with the Riesling. So Alex had popped over with a bottle of Montrachet. And dinner started to arrive. Starting with yogurt, nuts, freeze-dried fruit, and a beet. This was not the last beet we would see.

Long Island fluke, with barbecued onion, coriander, and fennel seed.

Then a rest course: A slice of homemade bread with homemade butter from some special cow.

And then a mystery course that we were asked to eat first and then guess what we were eating. My philistine guess, which I was too embarrassed to share, was "some kind of fish." I was kind of in the ballpark, at least with one of the ingredients. It was "squid flake" served with bacon fat and squid broth.

Between every course, by the way, the waiters swapped out our utensils, arriving with new ones in a box like this. If you're going to eat squid flake, there's no sense in diluting it with fluke after-taste.

And those fish eggs were also delicious.

The beet plate disappeared, to be replaced with "skate, with beef tenderloin, greens, and chicken bouillon."

Squab with pickled wild onion.

It was while eating the squab, I think, which came with pear skins (those curly things) that I concluded that my contribution to Dwight and Jodi's little local startup was not going to be minor at all, especially considering the Montrachet and Riesling.

And, just like that, "dinner" was over. And it was on to desert. Starting with... "Rock."

It is hard to even begin to convey how fan-fracking-tastically cool "rock" was, especially after a bottle of Riesling and Montrachet. "Rock," it turned out was bergamot sorbet in some sort of candy shell on a bed of "wheatberry gravel." It didn't look like that. It looked like a rock.

And then came the most remarkable dessert I have ever been served: "Coal."

"Coal" wasn't on the menu we later received (as nor, I later learned, were several of the other things we had eaten). "Coal," we learned, was chocolate meringue that had been vacuum sealed, frozen, and then rolled in liquid nitrogen. When "Coal" arrived, dry-ice smoke was flowing off of it.

Then the waiter chopped it up and passed it over. Amazing.

It was nearly midnight by now, three and a half hours after we sat down to eat a "quick bowl of moss" at Dwight and Jodi's little restaurant. With the exception of the "squid flake in bacon fat," about which I confess I shared the "slightly freaked out" feelings of the people of Portland, I had never eaten so many remarkable things in such rapid succession. The meal ended with "hazelnut truffles..."